BMW – The Future of Driving

DBS organized an event for the private banking clients, and BMW wanted to do a 360° video experience showcasing how the drive of the future might be like.

This is one of the more technically challenging projects we have ever took on. Essentially, the final video was a merging of three different captures – a 360° video of an external drive, a high quality 360° photograph of the interior of a BMW i8, and then a normal video capture of a woman driving where we will overlay on top of the final 360° video. After the whole merge, there was VFX done to add info panels on the windscreen – a simulation of how in the future a BMW car with its Heads-Up Display (HUD) will function.

The first part was an external capture. The route was planned to be along ECP, then over Benjamin Sheares Bridge, before turning into Marina Boulevard driving up to Marina Bay Financial Centre where DBS’s logo is affixed at the top. We did a total of 10 takes over two days, driving the same route over and over again. Doing a 360° drive shoot is not easy – you have to watch out for reflective cars, you cannot drive too close and yet road hog, and to match the timing you have to have quite a bit of luck in terms of no heavy vehicles or long traffic lights to delay the video timing.

The second part was by far the trickiest – again as mentioned the true litmus test of any 360° photographer is shooting confined spaces. Well, the BMW i8 is quite a fair bit smaller than our previous record, Lexmar’s Saturation Diving Bell. We had to work the lighting on the exterior to make sure the interior of the car looks great, properly lit and all the beautiful lines accentuated. We worked with a total of 6 sets of continuous lighting for this shoot, and getting in and out constantly was a challenge to say the least.

The last part was filming a normal video which we will later patch in for the entire 360° composition prior to VFX work. We laid out the drive sequence in a laptop in front, and did take after take with our model for driving through, basically the hand movements must simulate the drive sequence along with the planned “hands-free drive” feature.